


They Were Quarantined (Oh My Maker They Were Quarantined)

by bluebeholder



Category: Dragon Age II
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Domestic Fluff, Enemies to Lovers to Friends, Light Angst, M/M, Mentions of Sex, Quarantine, Roommates, eventually anyway, everyone's still magic though, it's cliches all the way down folks, mentions of past Anders/Karl
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-27
Updated: 2020-03-27
Packaged: 2021-03-01 04:08:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,415
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23345242
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluebeholder/pseuds/bluebeholder
Summary: A terrible plague strikes Thedas, resulting in a city-wide quarantine of Kirkwall. That would be all well and good, but now Anders is trapped in an apartment with his obnoxious roommate Fenris. It's only a matter of time before their mutual loathing explodes.And after that, it's only a matter of time before things change again.
Relationships: Anders/Fenris (Dragon Age)
Comments: 20
Kudos: 107





	They Were Quarantined (Oh My Maker They Were Quarantined)

**Author's Note:**

> This is EXACTLY what it says on the tin. Welcome to the world of COVID-19, folks, it's time for some cheesy hopeful romance founded on the current state of affairs! Enjoy your trope-based fenders, then go wash your hands again. :D

When the shelter-in-place order comes down from Governor Dumar, the news sets Anders’ teeth on edge. The comforting walls of his apartment seem suddenly more like prison walls. The windows may as well have bars on them. It’s not the same, of course—it _isn’t_ —but the sense of confinement makes his skin crawl anyway.

He wanders out of his room into the living room. Through the door he spots Fenris in the kitchen, standing by the window typing rapidly on his phone. Even if it’s Fenris, it’s a physical relief to see _someone else_. Anders sinks down to sit on the couch, so as not to disturb Pounce where he sleeps in an orange lump on the chair. He stares unseeingly at the black screen of the awful old TV he and Fenris share.

A moment later, Fenris sits down on the other side of the couch. He’s dead silent, and when Anders glances sideways he sees Fenris staring at the black screen too. The elf is still, not his usual quiet watchful stillness, but something a lot more…frightened.

“I almost feel like we should turn on the news,” Anders says, just to break the silence.

“What will they say that the emergency alert didn’t?” Fenris asks, holding up his phone before shoving it in his pocket.

Anders tips his head back on the couch and runs his hand through his hair. “It doesn’t start until tomorrow morning,” he says. “I can make a grocery run, if there are things you need…?”

It’s not an offer he’d usually make. He and Fenris get along enough to share the apartment—barely. They speak as little as possible, communicating mostly through bizarrely formal texts and muttered greetings when they pass in the kitchen. There may as well be a tape line in the fridge to separate their sides. They close their doors when they’re in their rooms to minimize contact when they’re home at the same time. Anders suspects Fenris of taking odd shifts at his job at the assistance center for elves from Tevinter, just so that he can avoid being near Anders.

The only reason Anders lives here is because he’d had nowhere else to go six months ago. Hawke had recommended a friend of hers, one who had an empty room, needed a roommate, and was desperate enough to take on a struggling graduate student with a cat. It had seemed like a perfect opportunity.

Which was when Anders met Fenris.

At first look, he’d thought he hit the jackpot. Fenris is _stunning_ , carrying himself with the pride of a king, silver-white hair well-kept, physique deceptively small and delicate but strong (how many boxes can he carry at once!?), incredible white tattoos standing out stark on his rich tawny skin. He didn’t smile when he shook Anders’ hand, but Anders thought maybe he could get somewhere anyway.

Within ten minutes of Hawke leaving after helping Anders move in, Anders found himself in a shouting match with Fenris over whether or not Anders could practice magic in the apartment.

After a month of constant arguments, snide commentary, insults, and everything short of a fistfight, they’d settled into a compromise of radio silence. Anders does magic only when Fenris can’t see and Fenris doesn’t talk about his work or opinions on Tevinter. Concessions are made for Pounce, who somehow endeared himself to the infuriating elf. Fenris plays with Pounce, buys him treats regularly, and even once—wonder of wonders—complimented Anders on his choice of cats.

Which had all worked perfectly until now. 

Rolling out of the south, the Blight—a nasty strain of disease—surged through Ferelden. Orzammar closed its doors and Orlais closed its borders, but neither fast enough. Kirkwall hadn’t even bothered to try, and now here Anders sits with Fenris.

“I’ll go with you,” Fenris says after a long silence. “Better to have two hands.”

“Right,” Anders says. He stands up and stretches. “Cat food and toilet paper.”

Fenris makes a face. “You have skewed priorities, mage. As I would expect.”

Anders doesn’t dignify that with a response.

-

In the days that follow, there’s a surge of calls and texts and video calls. Hawke—because she’s Hawke, and this reckless adoration for her friends is why they love her—breaks the shelter-in-place order in the dark of night to run through Kirkwall and deliver care packages to her friends. “I don’t care if I get arrested,” she tells Anders as she drops the package on the doorstep at two in the morning. “You’re my people and I’m going to take care of you, Blight or no Blight.”

But, for the most part, Anders, Fenris, and Pounce are alone. They don’t know anyone else in the apartment building and none of their other friends are comfortable breaking the order to come in person. A few days in, Anders spends four hours on a video call with his old friends in the Grey Wardens, with whom he’d long since lost contact. The following day, he overhears a conversation Fenris has on the phone with Isabela, though after he hears the soft sounds of Fenris trying to comfort her over the phone Anders puts on headphones and pretends that’s not happening. It’s too private for him to hear.

-

It becomes a slow, awkward dance. Fenris can work from home, taking calls from refugees with questions, coordinating with the local food bank, arguing with the police; Anders still has classes to take from home (whose workload seems to have doubled since moving online), and ‘office hours’ when students in classes he’s assisting with can text or video chat with him. They’re not on top of one another all the time—but it’s difficult to avoid crossing paths when they’re constantly in the apartment.

Anders learns the steps of the dance quickly. Trying not to use the kitchen at the same time, or trip over Fenris while he takes another interminable shower. Putting on headphones so he doesn’t overhear Fenris’ video conferences and phone calls. Poking his head into Fenris’ room to apologize for the moments when he turns off his computer mic to swear loudly at a professor. Avoiding arguments about what to watch in the evenings by simply streaming movies on his laptop. Going out on the tiny balcony to work out, rather than in the living room, which Fenris has firmly claimed to do yoga, and averting his eyes when he has to pass through the living room while Fenris is practicing. Keeping conversations limited to the strictest necessities like shopping lists. Carefully not doing any magic (not even _kitchen_ magic) where Fenris can see. Trying desperately not to let the sounds Fenris sometimes makes late at night inspire any weird thoughts.

It’s _exhausting_.

-

Two days before the shelter-in-place order is up, Anders is alerted to something going wrong by the sound of Fenris swearing a blue streak in the kitchen. Out of sheer curiosity, he gets up from his desk, stretches, and wanders out to spectate. It’s always fun when Fenris is angry at someone who isn’t Anders.

“Fasta vass, mage, did you see the news?” Fenris demands, slamming his phone down on the table. “No, of course you didn’t. In his _infinite wisdom_ , Governor Dumar has decided that we are trapped in this apartment for another _month_.”

“Andraste’s _tits_ , you have to be kidding,” Anders says, fumbling his phone out of his pocket. No, Fenris is not kidding: the emergency alert and several news alerts are flashing at him already.

When he looks up, Fenris is glaring _knives_ at him. Instantly Anders’ hackles are up and he glares right back, folding his arms. The silence stretches out, longer and longer, like a fuse on a bomb burning.

“I am sick of dancing around you,” Fenris growls at last. “You take up so much _space_. I can never forget you are here.”

“I should hope you remember I live here, considering I’m paying half the rent,” Anders snaps.

“This quarantine would be much easier if I didn’t have to live with you.” Fenris practically sneers, somehow contriving to look down his nose at Anders despite being a head shorter. “You are ridiculous in all your habits and I never realized just _how_ annoying you are.”

“Says you,” Anders says. He gestures at the living room, to indicate all of Fenris’ things. “At least I have the courtesy to stay in my room and not prance around taking up all the space while ‘working out’.”

Fenris scoffs. He looks unfairly handsome when he’s being arrogant and superior. “And at least I have the courtesy to do work that betters the lives of others rather than uselessly explaining flawed political theory to impressionable young minds.”

“At least those young minds are _in_ school,” Anders says ruthlessly, and by the way Fenris steps back a little Anders knows he’s struck a nerve. _Good_. “You wouldn’t know the kind of work it takes for them to succeed.”

“Children of privilege,” Fenris snarls, “just like you. Knowing no want or need—”

“Jealous, are you?” Anders jeers a little. “Look at that. Ser High-and-Mighty, brought to earth!”

Fenris moves straight into Anders’ space and for a split second Anders thinks Fenris will throw a punch. But he doesn’t. His voice lowers to lethal levels. “You,” he says softly, “are no better than I. Look at yourself: a worn-out man with no future, living vicariously through the students you teach. If you were _half_ the man you say you are, you wouldn’t be living with _me_.”

On sheer impulse Anders goes to slap Fenris and finds his wrist seized in midair, held in an iron grip. “At least I’m trying to move forward,” Anders says, leaning in, heart pounding. “You don’t even bother. Day after day, hiding from a dead man, refusing every chance you get to move on from this _legendarily_ bad past of yours.”

“I have no need to move on. I have a cause to fight for,” Fenris says. His green eyes are narrow and furious in the stark kitchen light. “I hear you _used_ to have one. What _would_ your old partner think of where you’ve ended up, I wonder?”

Anders feels like Fenris hit him in the throat. It’s almost impossible to form words. “Go fuck yourself,” he chokes out after a moment.

Fenris’ grip on Anders’ wrist tightens. “Fuck me yourself,” he says. _Taunts_.

It’s the stupidest decision Anders has ever made and _he knows it_.

That doesn’t stop Anders from surging forward and slamming Fenris back against the kitchen counter in a bruising kiss.

-

A ‘morning after’ has never been so awkward.

-

For the entire day, Anders locks himself in his room. He has a minifridge in his room with enough in it that the only exit he has to make is a trip or two to the bathroom. Looking Fenris in the eye after last night would be impossible. Of course—of _course_ —the first time Anders gets with someone in years, it’s hate sex. With his unfairly handsome, unfairly good in the bedroom, unfairly cuddly roommate.

_Hate sex_ _isn’t supposed to come with cuddles afterward_.

-

Somehow, Anders is wildly unsurprised when Fenris knocks on his door that night.

And the night after that.

_And_ the night after that.

Suddenly that aggressive one-night stand is starting to look a lot like something else.

-

Anders resolves to make the first move. He gets up before Fenris, after four days of this, and makes breakfast. For two. In his pajamas. Without thinking too hard about what he’s doing. And then he loiters in the kitchen, keeping the waffle iron hot until Fenris stumbles out, hair mussed and dressed only in an overlarge shirt that falls halfway to his knees and—

“Is that one of _mine_?” Anders asks, stunned.

Fenris looks blearily at him, rubbing his eyes. “I have been forgetting to do laundry,” he admits, looking down at himself. “Given what we’ve been doing, it seemed unlikely to offend.”

Anders stares at Fenris for a long, long moment, seized by the horrifying thought that Fenris is _adorable_ wearing Anders’ clothes. It takes him a moment to shake himself. “Do you,” he says, “want breakfast.”

Slowly, Fenris looks between Anders and the counter, where the makings of waffles are laid out. “I wouldn’t mind,” he says, and sits down at the tiny kitchen table.

It turns out that Fenris eats waffles in the weirdest possible way—who puts _marshmallows_ on their waffles and eats them with their bare hands?—but Anders refrains from comment. If breakfast is silent, it’s at least not charged with barely-repressed violence.

In fact, it could almost be construed as _pleasant_.

-

“I’m sorry for what I said,” Fenris says, appearing in Anders’ bedroom door.

Anders turns around. A sarcastic reply is rising to the surface until he sees Fenris looking…shamefaced. “…what?”

“I should not have brought up your former partner,” Fenris says. “There are some lines that should not be crossed.”

“Thanks,” Anders says. He can’t stop himself from glancing at the wallet-sized photo of Karl standing in a slightly-too-large frame on his desk. “And I’m…sorry for saying things about your job. You really do good work there. Some of my students came through your center.”

“I’ve helped with a few scholarship applications,” Fenris says. He leans against the doorframe, hands in his pockets. “For the people who come to us literate, at least.”

“You’ve never tried to get one for yourself?” Anders asks, folding his arms on the back of his chair and resting his chin on them. “You’re smarter than half the people who come through the university.”

Fenris shrugs, looking down at his feet. “I’ve never seen the need. I’d be older by six or seven years than all my classmates, besides.”

“Nontraditional students are more and more common,” Anders says. He smiles a little crookedly at Fenris. Let bygones be bygones, right? “Besides…if a worn-out man like me can go back after all this time, it’s definitely not too late for you.”

For a long moment, Fenris just looks at Anders, inscrutable. “Perhaps,” he says at last, and then he’s gone.

-

The sex gets a little less aggressive, after that.

-

Three weeks remain on the shelter-in-place order when Anders wakes up from a nightmare with his heart racing and his hands shaking. It’s one in the morning, but staying in his room isn’t possible. He staggers to the bathroom, thinking vague thoughts of showering, washing the empty cold dark from his mind, and the hot water helps. He sits on the floor under the hot water, leaning with his forehead on the wall, until some of the cold fades.

Now it’s almost two in the morning, and going back to bed isn’t going to happen. Anders wanders into the kitchen, to make a cup of tea. He looks out the window while the water heats, watching the orange streetlights illuminate Kirkwall’s empty roads. From the apartment, the worst tenement in Hightown, Anders should be able to see all the way out to the harbor. And he can, but only as a black arc cut out of Kirkwall with a few scattered lights, rather than the usual bustle of spotlights and buoys and night-sailing ships coming into port. There’s no sound of traffic. Nothing.

“Why are you awake?” Fenris asks in a sleep-rough voice.

Anders turns from the window to see Fenris standing rubbing his eyes in the living room, illuminated by a rectangle of stark light from the kitchen. “Bad dreams,” Anders says.

“And those required waking me up?” Fenris asks, no venom in his voice.

“I thought I was pretty quiet.”

“The shower wall is beside my head,” Fenris says. His hair is flat against one side of his head and tangled in a cloud on the other. It’s endearing. “And then you didn’t go back to bed. I was…concerned. Is there…um…would you like to talk about it?”

Anders’ instinct is to say no. Then a reckless thought occurs to him: from what he knows of Fenris’ past, what Hawke’s told him and what he’s overheard and the things Fenris has said explicitly, there’s a very real chance Fenris could understand. He turns around to pour the hot water in his mug, so he doesn’t have to look at Fenris, and keeps his tone light. “Dreamed I was back in the Circle.”

“…oh.”

“In solitary,” Anders goes on, changing his mind at the last second to hot chocolate and pulling a packet from the cupboard. “This quarantine thing is a bit much like that for my taste.”

There’s an extremely drawn-out pause. Anders concentrates very firmly on stirring his hot chocolate, making a bit of a show of checking to see how many marshmallows Fenris left him after the waffles, and meticulously dropping them one after the other into his cup.

“I feel you,” Fenris says softly. Anders turns around, mug held tight in both hands, to see Fenris looking even more tired. His tattoos flicker a little with eerie blue light, but Fenris doesn’t seem to notice. “It’s been reminding me too much of Tevinter.”

Saying anything more doesn’t seem necessary, not really. Everything they’ve said about their pasts has been said in the context of fighting one another. All the same, it’s been said before, and right now, there’s no need to rehash it again.

It’s enough for Anders that Fenris understands.

-

“You watch _that_?” Fenris points at _Delivery of the Defiant_ , with its noble-looking caped crusaders in heroic poses, on top of Anders’ small stack of DVDs.

“It’s a classic,” Anders says. He points in turn at the TV, hooked up to Fenris’ laptop, displaying the title card of _Belle From Montsimmard_. “And _that_ is tripe.”

Fenris scoffs. “You clearly appreciate fine art even less than I expected.”

“We have to decide on something,” Anders says. He glances at his own laptop. “Pizza will be here in like ten minutes.”

“What about something neither of us watch?” Fenris asks. “Comedy?”

Anders shrugs. “Could watch horror.”

“There’s one Hawke mentioned a few times,” Fenris says. “The… _Sisterhood of the Red Idol_?”

“I’ve heard that one’s good,” Anders says. “Might as well try it.”

After fifteen minutes, as the unwitting ingenue and his friends make their way into the abandoned castle while red-robed figures watch from afar and eerie music plays, Anders is too spooked to continue eating. At half an hour in, as one of the friends is dragged screaming into the darkness by the evil sisters, they have to pause the movie to clean up the wine Fenris spilled when he dropped his glass in shock. When an hour has passed, and the ingenue and his boyfriend have been locked in a pitch-black vault awaiting a terrible fate, Anders has dragged blankets over them both for protection.

By the time the credits roll, a bloodbath ending the movie in spectacular fashion, Fenris is practically in Anders’ lap.

“Hawke was right,” Fenris says, as the movie fades to black. “That _was_ good.”

Anders, acutely aware of how warm Fenris is under his arm, decides to take the plunge. “Night’s not over yet. I think we’d better watch another,” he says. “Merrill mentioned _It Moves_ to me once.”

Fenris looks up at Anders, close enough that their faces are nearly touching. He doesn’t smile, not quite, but it’s close. “I think that’s a good idea.”

-

After six months wearing headphones, it’s a joy to find that their music taste, at least, overlaps.

-

When playing Slapjack, Fenris may be faster, but Anders has bigger hands, which gives Fenris pause enough for Anders to keep the game at a roughly even level. 

-

Pounce gets out on the balcony, providing a great diversion in almost falling off the balcony while he catches a pigeon. Fenris is considerate enough to clean up the mess while Anders sits on the couch with Pounce on his lap, trying not to have hysterics.

-

The grocery store, for once, isn’t out of cake mix when Anders goes. He impulsively grabs a box, and then some frosting, and if he’s going down this road why not pick up sprinkles too? The fancy cupcake papers are probably over the top, but Andraste’s knickers, they need _some_ fun in their lives.

“What in the _world_ are you doing?” Fenris asks, coming into the kitchen.

“Making cupcakes,” Anders says. He steps back from the counter to show off the dozen vanilla-confetti cupcakes on the counter, waiting to be frosted.

“Is there an occasion?” Fenris looks bewildered.

Anders shrugs. “We’re on quarantine?” he hazards. “I think that’s enough of a reason.”

Fenris approaches the cupcakes as if they’ll bite. “You are _so_ strange.”

Rather than smacking him, Anders tosses the can of icing at Fenris. “Get to work,” he says. “I want to eat one.”

Still looking utterly confounded, Fenris retrieves a butter knife and gets to work. He’s much neater about it than Anders would have been, even managing gentle artistic swirls, but the second he’s done with the last cupcake, he promptly starts _licking the knife_.

“Talk about strange,” Anders mutters, dusting the cupcakes with sprinkles.

“I’ve only seen this for _occasions_ ,” Fenris stresses. “Birthdays. Weddings. Why would you just…make these?”

“Because I can,” Anders says, pulling out a spoon and sticking it in the frosting for a bite. “I didn’t get to growing up, and now if I want to make and eat a dozen cupcakes by myself, I _can_.”

Fenris sighs. “Kaffas, mage, do you think I’m going to let you eat all of them?” He picks up a cupcake and takes a bite. Anders smiles.

-

With two weeks left in the shelter-in-place, things are starting to look like the order will actually lift. The Blight has done serious damage, and it looks like Kirkwall will be recovering for a while, but news from Ferelden and Orlais is good. Hawke is already planning a party at the Hanged Man the day the order ends, to celebrate.

Anders feels a dull sense of sadness at the thought. He can’t help wondering if things will go back to normal between himself and Fenris. He’s become accustomed to this now. Anders _likes_ the way things are. Sleeping with Fenris every night, pretending he’s still in school every day while trying to convince undergrads to write papers, spending the evenings watching movies, playing board games, and talking with Fenris.

It’s like a sleepover sometimes, only with sex, Anders muses one day while procrastinating a paper of his own. He stares idly at the laptop screen. They’ve talked about everything: their pasts, their old dreams, the things they want now. Fenris has a wicked sense of humor and cheats at cards and lets Pounce sit on his lap.

One evening, Fenris had told Anders the entire story of his past—of what he remembers of life in Tevinter, of Danarius’ sick experiments, of how he’d eventually been forced to kill Danarius in self-defense and flee to seek asylum in the Free Marches. Anders had listened soberly, and when Fenris asked shared his own history with the Circle, his liberation and time as an activist with Karl, and…what had happened after. There hadn’t been tears from either of them, but…almost.

The sex after _that_ conversation was some of the tenderest Anders had ever had.

Sometimes, Anders doesn’t try to delude himself, and this is one of those times. He puts his forehead down on the desk. He’s got _feelings_ for Fenris. And he doesn’t want to give them up when the quarantine ends.

-

“I owe you for the breakfast,” Fenris says one afternoon, a little less than a week before the end of quarantine, “so I am making you dinner.”

His tone brooks no argument. Anders sits back on the couch and nods. “Better than ramen.”

Fenris coughs. He flushes, blush darkening his cheeks and the tips of his ears. “It may not be much better. I had planned pasta. With basil pesto.”

“I would _love_ that,” Anders says fervently.

They eat sitting at the kitchen table, and neither of them mention the way their ankles tangle together under the table. Pounce lies on the windowsill, tail swishing slowly back and forth, sleeping. It’s peaceful. Fenris bought ice cream, apparently, but since the store was almost out they have to share one pint between them.

“I don’t want to go back,” Anders says thoughtlessly.

“Go back?” Fenris asks, licking his spoon and gazing at Anders.

It’s Anders’ turn to blush. “I mean—to how things were before,” he says. “Us. Fighting.”

Fenris sets down his spoon. “I don’t want to either,” he says. His hands lie flat on the table, very still. “I…like you, Anders.”

Carefully, Anders reaches out and takes Fenris’ hand in his. “It’ll all go back to usual.”

“Does it have to?” Fenris asks, lacing his fingers with Anders’. “Everything has changed, and I think it will remain so for a while, even after the order lifts.”

“You’re right about that,” Anders says. He brushes his thumb over the back of Fenris’ hand. “Do you think…we could stay the same? As we are now?”

“We can try,” Fenris says. He offers Anders a small, genuine smile. “I’d like that.”

“Good,” Anders says, as Fenris lifts Anders’ hand to his lips and kisses it.

-

They arrive at the Hanged Man together the day the quarantine lifts. Hawke already has the corner table reserved, holding it against the crush of people out celebrating, and their friends are all present. Aveline and Donnic wearing engagement rings, Sebastian wearing a Chantry symbol and holding a sangria, Merrill with flowers in her hair, Isabela looking a little pale and drawn but smiling rakishly, Varric with a new notebook in his hand, Justice _smiling_ for once, and Hawke cheerful and loud and welcoming.

“Hey!” she shouts, waving at Anders and Fenris from across the bar.

Anders lets Fenris lead him through the crowd, holding him tight by the hand. When they push their way into view, the whole table stops and stares. Anders squeezes Fenris’ hand tight, giving the shock a moment.

“Well,” Varric says with a grin, “I think you two have a story to tell.”

“I think we do,” Fenris says, pulling Anders down into the seat beside him.

Anders scoots his chair sideways so he's shoulder to shoulder with Fenris. “So it all started with the quarantine…”


End file.
